Home Secretary John Reid must be anxious this morning, waiting to see if Blair gives him his full support and every confidence. For as sure as home secretaries are paranoid and hopeless, the countdown to departure from office begins as soon as support comes from no. 10.

John Reid is not only dealing with over full prisons (”Dear Judges, please can you send only the very very bad ones to prison? Many thanks, John”) and the ongoing debate over how up to date a criminal’s criminal record is if they committed the crime abroad, but now he has to cope with the resignation of Professor Rod Morgan who, until today, was the head of the Youth Justice Board.

Morgan took the post in April 2004, but has quit for reasons which include “the swamping of the youth courts and childrens prisons with minor offenders”. Prior to that he used to be Chief Inspector for Probation so I would wager he knows a thing or two about prison.

He has attacked the governments policy on young offenders and been quoted as saying “we are on the brink of a prison’s crisis, lots of people are in police cells because there is no space for them in custody and the same is true for children and young people”.

Apparently Reid has known for a long time that prisons are bursting at the seams but he sold off a prison ship for something like 2 and a half million quid a couple of years ago. Now he’s in negociations to buy it back, but the price has risen just a little over inflation to around 7 and a half million.

Well Mr Reid, my garage could fit at least 2 prisoners, and I’ve just had a new padlock fitted, so I’ll rent it to you for the bargain price of just £50 a week, assuming you provide the guards and what have you.

That should save you a few bob, but whether or not its enough to save your job I wouldn’t like to say.

One Comment on “Unemployment Looms For John Reid”

I still can’t quite get my head around the idea that someone in Government might be held accountable for something. Sure, the last couple of Home Office ministers also had to resign in disgrace, but how could Blair say “He made some bad decisions so he had to go” with a straight face?!